


What No One Can Sell

by voodoochild



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen, Introspection, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-09
Updated: 2010-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 20:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SSA David Rossi realizes just how close he's come to losing his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What No One Can Sell

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Jeffrey Foucault's "Ghost Repeater". Prompt is from the Gen-a-thon, "Rossi, post-Masterpiece - 'if you hurt what's mine'".

David Rossi knows his deepest sin is pride, has known for a long time.

There are the jokes his ex-wives make that they didn't know they'd married Agent Rossi and Mister Ego. There are the smirking columnists who review his books and talk about his "groupies", the fans who treat him like a rock star rather than a middle-aged profiler who pays more alimony every month than most people make in a year. He shouldn't need to be reminded that hubris is a deadly sin, worse than just about any other sin he's committed over the years - and if he's honest, that's been more than a few.

But then Professor Louis Rothchild confesses to seven murders, with the intent to commit five more. He's even got the guts to think he's going to get away with it - with trapping Hotch, Reid, Morgan, Prentiss, and Todd in a deathtrap looking for hostages that aren't there. He sits across from Dave, cool as ice, and Dave wants nothing more than to lunge across the table and knock the pretentious wire-framed glasses right off Rothchild.

It's really not pride that's the uppermost sin on Dave's mind just then.

Because they are - as Rothchild pointed out - Dave's family. His team, who accepted him, entitlement issues, ego, and all. These are the people he trusts his life to every single day, and who trust him in return. He is sworn to protect them, and he'll be damned if he's going to get outmaneuvered by a petty egomaniac like Rothchild. Not after years of being called the best profiler in the Bureau - he's got to keep earning that title.

So Dave moves his pieces into position, plays the black king to Rothchild's white knight. Dave is a decent chess player (Gideon was better, because Gideon could see five moves ahead and maybe that's why he left), but he's got to be careful. He has a tendency to show his strategy too soon, let his certainty that he's winning show, and it's what gets his ass kicked at poker by Garcia, of all people. It's probably a good thing she's here to have his back. She's the perfect rook; trustworthy and seemingly innocent, Rothchild doesn't know her at all. He takes her panic and concern at face value, thinks she's not a threat.

Penelope Garcia? With the proper motivation, she's the most dangerous one on his team, and she's really good at putting on a show.

No, Rothchild never, ever, should have put Dave's team in danger, any of them. That includes Todd, because when you sit at JJ's desk and ride with Hotch out in the field without complaining about his driving, you're team. She doesn't wander the office barefoot or keep an emergency stash of Klondike bars in her office fridge for bad days like JJ. She doesn't steal Reid's pens or buy an extra bacon-egg-and-cheese bagel for Hotch on the mornings they all know he's slept in his office.

But Jordan's learning. She teases Morgan about his picky eating and listens to Reid's mid-flight treatises on yoga or parapsychology or the Newtonian derivation. She bought everyone coffee after their first case together and she's already promised to buy the first round of drinks when they go out this weekend. She knows Prentiss is the only one that can manage to fix the copier, and not to touch anything in Garcia's lair without asking. She's trying, and that's what's important.

She's not JJ, and she knows it. JJ is irreplacable. It was barely two days, and Dave knows he wasn't the only one missing her terrible singing-along to Foreigner on the plane. They all keep looking for her at press conferences and accidentally dialing her cell phone. Dave misses trading recipes with her - JJ's gumbo is starting to become legendary, rivaling Will's mother's recipe, even - and Reid keeps getting this kicked-puppy look whenever there's a baseball game on TV. If anything, Tuesday nights are a lot quieter, with just Garcia and Prentiss heckling whatever romantic comedy they've chosen.

Dave can't imagine how much worse it would have been if it had been JJ out in the field. Knowing she was safe at home, "eating my weight in Oreos, watching reruns of 90210, and driving Will up the walls" meant more than he could admit. But Rothchild hadn't known that, thought he'd gotten Dave's entire family in one blow, and that's what had given him the strength to play out the game. That doesn't mean it was easy, or that he doesn't know exactly how close he had come to losing them, which is why he's back in that interrogation room, trying and failing to keep the what-ifs out of his head.

He could have lost them all.

Reid, the brilliant one, smarter than any of them put together. Sometimes you want to strangle him - or at least design an "off" switch - but you can always count on him to crack a major part of the case. For all of his experience, his books, his fieldwork, Dave knows he'll never be able to solve things the way Reid does. As a teacher, he loves students like Reid the most, because they require your best just to keep up.

Prentiss, their black sheep, once even more of an outcast than Dave himself. She's smart and tough and loyal to a fault, and he knows that's no accident. Elizabeth Prentiss wouldn't allow anything less in a daughter, and he's been acquainted with the Ambassador for a number of years. She's not her mother, thank God, and he wishes she would accept that instead of rushing to prove herself to everyone. The Colorado case proved that - she scared the hell out of him, but it was exactly what he would have done in her place. She has nothing to prove to him, not after staying to help him close the Galen case.

Morgan, their right hand and protector, who challenges Dave unlike anyone else. With Morgan, respect and trust are continually earned, and sometimes Dave isn't sure he's earned anything from Morgan. But when all is said and done, Morgan will protect his team with his life, and Dave is thankful for that unquestioning loyalty. He appreciates the challenge more, though. You never want to take someone like Derek Morgan for granted, not when it's clear he's going to step into Dave's shoes someday.

And Aaron. SSA Aaron Hotchner who Dave's watched grow from a cocky, idealistic prosecutor to the real best profiler in the Bureau.

They have such history, he and Aaron. Three years of teaching Aaron the intricacies of profiling - he was always driven and intuitive, attacking a case from every angle until he got the whole picture. It served him well, and he'd honed that instinct until it was razor-sharp, capable of cutting deep enough that Dave knows Aaron finds it hard to look in the mirror after certain cases. Dave had also taught him that you can't take cases home with you - a lesson he'd learned two ex-wives ago and never repeated afterward - prying him away from his desk at 2 am and stealing his car keys so that Aaron would have to ride in with either Dave or one of the other agents.

But then came Portland, and the Quinland murders, and Dave got to the point where he couldn't turn it off, and he'd called it quits. Had packed up and moved to Georgetown, going through another two marriages in the process. Aaron had never held a grudge, showing up periodically at one of Dave's book signings and talking him into Indian food or out for a beer.

Aaron has always had the life that Dave wishes he could have had - beautiful, loving wife, beautiful child, professional recognition without the insanity of being a public figure - and to think Rothchild could have ended all that? It makes Dave's blood run cold. No child should be without a father, no wife without her husband. And no team without their leader. Dave doesn't kid himself; he's not the lead agent, he's employed on Aaron's good will, and he owes the man for every good day they have.

"Dave?"

He turns, finds Aaron standing in the doorway, still in his flak vest. He always forgets he's wearing it. The corner of Aaron's mouth is turned down disapprovingly, and Dave has to suppress a grin. Aaron got that look from him, knows the power of it.

"No, I'm not all right," Dave says, answering Aaron's unasked question. "A minute or two. That's all it would have taken, and you'd all be dead."

Aaron shakes his head. "This is about Rothchild? Dave, you were better. You proved it."

"I proved that I was lucky and that Garcia's a damned good accomplice. Nothing more."

"Nothing less, either," Aaron says. He's always been good at encouraging-without-outright-praise, the manipulative bastard. "Come on, MacPhearson's is still open. I owe you a round from last time."

Dave can't help but glance at the chair Rothchild was sitting in one last time, then turns and follows Aaron down to the bullpen. The team is waiting, Reid on his cell phone telling JJ about the campus visit, Prentiss and Garcia critiquing Morgan's new jacket, and Dave falls into step with them, surrounded by laughter, bickering, and the occasional smack to Morgan from one of the girls. Rothchild's going to rot in prison, and Dave doesn't need to spare him another thought.

Tonight is for his team.


End file.
